9th April 2017

De Gaulle once said 'Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness and cunning...high qualities...the means to great ends.'
My all-time heroes are De Gaulle and Churchill, men who put into practice brave action when it was desperately needed. So all the more surprising that the man the whole world (including the US) loved to hate has turned the tide. Yes, Trump has confounded us all. Par contre I was left disappointed in Obama. Never was there such a fine orator, such a great actor on the world stage. Ultimately that was the problem - all fine words but absolutely no action. As Churchill might have said: sometimes autocratic, evil dictators rise up, against whom diplomacy and sitting on the fence are useless. Just ask Chamberlain! If you'd have asked me a few weeks ago what kind of global action Trump might take, I'd have imagined a scattergun, incoherent, all-guns-firing explosion of uncontrolled aggression. And yet, the action in Syria when it came was careful, proportionate, exactly targetted and controlled.  Both Hollande and Merkel were full of praise, despite their own worries at home. As usual in the EU, it's the constant struggle of right v left. For each, the favourite successor wants a full United States of Europe - but where's the democracy in that?
,,,,What would De Gaulle have said?  'Politics - too serious a matter to be left to politicians!'